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Left alone in the courtyard, his task completed, Wylan was free to wander, to admire the plantings and wish that instead of stealing from the Disciple, he could sit with her and talk about botany.

He hoped the others would be done soon. He wanted this to be over so they could go back to Ketterdam. He wanted to stop being hurt by Jesper's clumsy attempts to make him feel better about not being able to read. And he wanted to never again say anything that would make Jesper so angry and sad as he had been when Wylan revealed he knew Jesper was a Grisha. He just wanted to go back to where they had been before, lying in each other's arms, warm and happy.

But that was impossible. He had probably ruined things forever. Jesper would never want to speak to him again, much less kiss him or hold him. And Wylan hadn't known exactly how much those things had meant to him until now that he could no longer have them.

Then all thought of everything else was forgotten when he saw a butterfly of a specific shade of blue flutter past him. It could only mean one thing. "Hello," he said to it breathlessly. His heart pounding with excitement, Wylan followed the butterfly, and stopped short in front of the most beautiful flowers he had ever seen. The butterfly settled on a bloom, sipping its nectar. "Look at you. It's the most stunning example of a cyan morpho. And pollinating a Datura Meloxia." As he stood there and watched in awe, several more cyan morphos came along and settled on the flowers. "I cannot believe that I get to see this in my lifetime. And there is no one to bear witness."

He looked back over his shoulder in the direction Jesper had gone. He wanted more than anything ever in his life to have Jesper standing there with him, those dark eyes on him, his face serious the way it got when he was really concentrating, letting Wylan tell him the story of this remarkable plant. But really, he'd make a joke or something, or wander off, Wylan told himself, to relieve the ache caused by Jesper's absence.

"Like he'd care," he said softly to the butterflies, laughing at his own foolishness. They didn't respond, busily sipping away at their blossoms. But he had to try. Raising his voice to be heard in the antechamber, possibly beyond, he continued, "Oh, you know, it's only the most perfect example of symbiosis. The butterflies process the deadly, poisonous nectar of the flower and pollinate the plants in return. They need each other to survive." In a way, that explained the Crows quite neatly. Jesper and Inej and Kaz, each poisonous in their own way, but providing life to each other. And then Nina, and Wylan, coming in, finding their way as part of that interconnection. Wylan wasn't sure he needed Kaz or Inej to survive … but he thought it was quite possible that he had learned to need Jesper that way. And—he had hoped, albeit briefly, that the feelings were mutual. "It's like a … well, it's like a little love story. Of sorts."

Possibly the closest Wylan would ever get again to a love story, he thought, watching the butterflies and the flowers, entranced by their beauty.


Flower petals softly caressed Jesper's face, bringing with them a light, delicate scent that was immediately familiar, although he had forgotten it for a long time.

He opened his eyes to sunlight through branches covered in flowers, birds chirping, and the most beloved face above him, that beautiful smile he had forced himself to forget beaming down on him. "Jesper," she said softly, in the voice of his dreams.

He sat up on his elbows, unable to believe it was really her. "Mama."

She laughed, helping him to his feet, and he held her close. How desperately he had missed her. "Oh, my little rabbit," she whispered. "How I've missed you."

He closed his eyes, laughing with her in joy at being together again, after such a long time.

At last, she let him go. "Come. Let us see how much you've learned."

"It's been a long time, Mama," he said, trailing after her. The little apples were already lined up on the fence, just as they had been when he was small and she was first teaching him to shoot.

"Then I hope you have learned a great deal." She went first, taking one of his guns, the rapid fire still such a familiar cadence. The apples flew off the rail and into the air with the force of her bullets. Flipping the gun in her hand, she presented it back to him butt first. "Let's see what you got."

Jesper smiled down at her. He took the gun, pulled the other from his holster, twirled them both, and picked off apples in rapid succession until there was only one left. Flipping his right-hand gun, he cocked it with the left, and the last apple disappeared. He spun the guns again before reholstering them.

His mother laughed with pride and delight.

"I had an excellent teacher," he reminded her.

"You were such a natural at everything I was teaching you. Spoons into rings, coins into keys … And then you stopped."

"You were gone." All the pain and sorrow he had turned into anger rushed over him like it had been only yesterday. "After that, Dad made me promise to hide it away. So that no one would ever ask me to come and risk my life to save someone."

"You risk your life for your friends all the time."

"But they didn't ask me to do it." Kaz demanded, sometimes, but mostly Jesper could take comfort in knowing that what he did for the Crows he did because he chose to. "And it's not because I'm a Durast. I just happen to look fantastic while being an excellent shot."

His chest felt tight and heavy, as though it was hard to breathe, but it seemed so far away, so unimportant, compared to standing here with his mother again at last. "Is this how you felt, when the poison killed you? If you weren't Grisha, you would still be alive." He hadn't said that aloud since he was a small child.

"And if I hadn't drawn the poison from her small body into my own, she would have died."

"I was just a kid," he said, the tears stinging his eyes at the memory of his own confusion, the sense of betrayal. "I needed you, too."

His mother took both of his hands in hers. "You were angry with me. Maybe you still are. And it's okay to feel that way. I am sorry I left you, little rabbit." She cupped his face with her hand. "But you must understand. What we do while we're alive, who we are, our truth, that is all we can control. That is all we have. Hiding who you are won't save you."

"I'm … I'm afraid, Mama," he admitted. Tears had filled his eyes and he didn't try to hide them. Not from her. "Being who you were didn't save you."

"But it saved someone else." Her smile, so long forgotten, so much loved, so much a part of him even when he tried not to think of it. "You contain so much goodness, my son. The world deserves to see all of it." She tipped his head down to her and kissed his forehead. "Be brave now, little rabbit."

A truly foul taste filled his mouth, and he called her name, but the light was gone, and she was gone. Only this time, she was part of him again. He wouldn't forget her now. He wouldn't have to.